Power Ranking College Football Coaches by Their Twitter Followers

Power Ranking College Football Coaches by Their Twitter Followers

There are many ways to judge the popularity of a college football coach, but perhaps one of the best is to look at his Twitter followers.

With the way the college football landscape is changing, Twitter is growing in popularity, and coaches use it in a number of different ways.

Just a few months ago, USA Today came out with the top 10 most popular college football coaches on Twitter. We are going to take it one step further and list the top 25 coaches.

While names like Urban Meyer, Nick Saban and Brady Hoke do not have Twitter accounts, most of the big-name coaches are very active with social media.

So, here are the most popular coaches in college football. At least when it comes to Twitter, that is.

*Number of Twitter followers are current as of Sunday, April 28, 2013.

Honorable Mentions

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Here are five coaches who just missed out on making the list.

Mike Riley, Oregon (@Coach_Riley): 14,832—The head man at Oregon State is one of many very popular college football coaches out West.

Kevin Wilson, Indiana (@IUCoachWilson): 15,494—Even though Indiana head coach Kevin Wilson does not win too many football games, he is very popular with the social media.

Tommy Tuberville, Cincinnati (@TTuberville): 17,384—The new head coach of the Bearcats brings a large number of Twitter followers. Not quite as much as two former Cincinnati head coaches near the top of the list.

Charlie Weis, Kansas (@CoachWeisKansas): 17,442—Even though he does not win many games, Weis is still very popular as far as Twitter is concerned.

Kliff Kingsbury, Texas Tech (@TTUKingsbury): 18,437—The new Texas Tech head coach is not afraid to speak his mind, making him perfect to follow on Twitter.

Larry Fedora, North Carolina (@CoachFedora): 19,418—Coming from Southern Miss, Fedora has quickly grown popular on Twitter in just one season in Chapel Hill coaching North Carolina. He is always quick to back his players (former and present) on Twitter.

No. 24 James Franklin

Having just gone over 20,000 followers in recent days, Franklin is one of 11 SEC coaches on the list.

No question that the Twitter followers from this conference are higher than any other league in the country.

Franklin is a big believer in the retweet and is not afraid to throw in a tweet of his own once in a while. Look for him to continue to grow in popularity in coming years, particularly if he finds a big-time gig somewhere else.

No. 7 Steve Sarkisian

Just a few months ago, Sarkisian was in the top five, and while he has not lost followers, he has not gained them as quickly as the coaches from the SEC. That is why he has dropped a few spots on the list.

One of the reasons two new SEC coaches might have passed Sarkisian is the simple fact that he is not tweeting as much anymore.

He put less than 10 tweets out there in April, and that is not a good way to add followers.

No. 2 Brian Kelly

Kelly is one of those coaches who likes to put up motivational tweets or interesting quotes.

He is very consistent with a tweet or two every day to keep fans interested. With the following Notre Dame football has, this guy should be going over 100,000 followers very soon if he can continue to tweet as much as possible.

The recent success of the Notre Dame football program certainly does not hurt, either.